Abstract
Given the intense resistance towards postcolonial critique within Brazilian Studies, this article intends to organize the discussion about the postcolonial thought in Brazil, structuring it and situating what would be its main object of study. According to the argument developed in this article, the postcolonial experience is narrated hegemonically by the national-occidental intellectual (the craftsman of the dialectics between the local and the universal). This intellectual frequently claims filiation to the Western tradition whilst also affirming the desire to demarcate the national singularity, turning positive the difference between his marginal country and the center of Western power. In this article I intend to show that the national-occidental way of articulating the postcolonial replicates the profound logic of coloniality. Based on this critique of the national-occidental reason, I offer an alternative structuration to the postcolonial question within Brazilian Studies.
Keywords
National-occidental; Postcolonial; Brazilian social thought; Coloniality